Over the last 20 years, the UK Higher Education sector has experienced a significant change to its funding base with a shift away from government funding, to operating within a highly competitive marketised environment. This shift has impacted the governance and management structures within the sector, with universities encouraged to adopt a more…

Recent shifts in university governance have relied on increased autonomy. Within this context, the enhanced role attributed to governance boards at the expense of academic bodies and the role of external stakeholders has gained momentum. With the aim of understanding the extent of the influence of external stakeholders at the institutional level,…

This conceptual paper contributes to the discussion of the role of regional government and regional Triple Helix constellations driving economic development and growth within regional boundaries. The impact of regionalism and subsidiarity on regional Triple Helix constellations, and the questions of governmentality, governance and institutional…

The paper analyses continuing vocational education and training policies in the UK in the period 1979-2010 with a focus on regulation and governance. It reviews Conservative and Labour party policies to ascertain their principal components and explore their evolution through time. More specifically, the paper reviews the paradoxical existence of…

The paper critically assesses the more turbulent period in agri-food since 2007- by applying a transitions perspective to a range of empirical data collected from key private and public stakeholders in the UK during that period. It argues that increased volatility and a series of interdependent landscape pressures on the dominant agri-food regime…

This study aims to develop a conceptual model of the wider influencing forces impacting the governance paradigms of public universities. It draws on the multi-theoretical governance concept and seeks to identify these forces through the lens of chief audit executives using a qualitative research approach. The interview data supported by published…

This article explores how power relations are constructed in the governance of higher education institutions. It examines and deconstructs, from a Foucauldian perspective, power relations and mechanisms in the relationship between the state and higher education institutions, and between academic and management staff. This research article…

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The "state" itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people--bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader--and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students…

The emergence of "managerialism" in the governance and direction of UK higher education (HE) institutions has been led by government demands for greater accountability in the quality and cost of universities. There is emerging anecdotal evidence indicating that the estimation performance of HE spreadsheets and regression models are poor.…

This article aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the participative, democratic model of governance commonly found within social enterprises. This model has its origins in the broader not-for-profit sector where it is widely adopted. A core assumption of this governance form is that it ensures that the organisation will take a range of views into…